Rain
by turambar499
Summary: Against my expectations, we got a DCCW musical episode. While I did enjoy "Duet," I wanted to play around with the ending a little bit, as well as bring in a slightly more contemporary musical reference. Rated K-plus.


_Against my expectations, we got a DCCW musical episode. While I did enjoy "Duet," I wanted to play around with the ending a little bit, as well as bring in a slightly more contemporary musical reference. Rated K-plus._

 _As always, all characters belong to DC Comics and the CW, and this is written purely for fun. Thanks for reading. I appreciate it._

 _..._

As he tumbled to the ground, Barry felt like he'd been hit with a sledgehammer.

He wasn't sure what convinced him to run into the middle of a gunfight between rival mobsters without his powers. Maybe he let himself get caught up in the drama and invincibility of being in a musical. Maybe he thought everyone would dramatically point their guns to the sky and unilaterally agree to a ceasefire.

He was wrong.

As bullets continued to fly above his body, he put his left hand to his right shoulder, finding blood on his fingers when he pulled it back. Bizarrely, he wondered if this was a good sign. _If the good guy gets hit in the shoulder, he's guaranteed to survive, right? Isn't that how all shows go?_

Suddenly, dirt and gravel exploded around where he lay. Apparently, he was either a target, or he was in the way and no one cared. With no speed, no special abilities, and no way to get his bearings, he fell on instinct and curled up to make himself as small as possible, covering his head with his arms. He vaguely thought he heard someone call his name, but in the storm of gunfire and gangster bodies hitting the ground, he couldn't be sure. He was as vulnerable as any normal human in this musical, and basic, primal fear took over in freezing his body.

Then, without warning, the guns stopped firing and the bodies stopped dropping. For a few tense seconds, Barry didn't dare trust his senses and kept himself curled up, eyes shut tight. Finally, cautiously, he looked up, and he saw that all the gangsters had disappeared. He was alone, with nothing but the eerie stillness of the alley sounding in his ears, and he let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

Only to feel it hitch back in his chest as he heard someone cry out, in a pained whisper. "Barry…"

He turned his head toward the sound, at first only seeing a black, 40s-era automobile. Looking closely, he noticed a black fur coat trailing out behind it, and he heard the same soft moan. "Barry…"

"Kara…," he muttered, struggling to his feet and cradling his shoulder as he staggered behind the car to find the source of the voice. Cold flooded his stomach as she came into view.

A bullet had struck Kara in the stomach, and she was lying awkwardly against the side of the car, struggling to keep herself sitting up while holding her hands against the wound. In fact, her strength seemed to be fading fast as her body crept sideways towards the ground, and Barry moved faster than he ever thought he could without the Speed Force, falling to his knees next to her so that she fell into his lap rather than onto the hard pavement. He got his uninjured left arm around her shoulders to cushion her head as she groaned into his stomach in pain.

"Hey hey, you're okay, you're okay," Barry stammered, head whipping up and down her body as he tried to convince himself that it wasn't as bad as it looked. Her stomach wound continued to bleed, however, staining her hands red. He put his right hand on top of hers, grunting at the stab in his shoulder.

Kara turned her head upwards, eyes shut against the agony. "I _really_ miss being bulletproof," she muttered.

Barry looked frantically both ways down the street. He wanted to run, to get help, but where could he go? He was in an alley, in a 40s-style musical, in some dream world of their own subconscious and yet somehow not of their own control. He started screaming.

"Hey! Music Meister!" he shouted. "Whatever your name is! Help us! _Help her_!" he finished, desperately.

His voice echoed off the walls of the alley. No one replied. No mobster bodies littered the street. Not a single sound came from the club right next to them.

"ANSWER ME!"

Silence.

The cold in his stomach hardened into ice. The Music Meister wasn't listening. There was no getting help. Worst of all, he looked down at Kara, whose eyes had opened and who now showed more than just pain on her face. There was despair…and resignation.

 _No_ , Barry thought. _I can't let this happen_. "Just hang on, Kara. Okay?" he half ordered, half begged. "I'll…I"ll get help. I'll find someone."

In response, Kara shook her head and reached over with her right hand, gripping his pant leg. "Don't, Barry. Everyone's gone. There's no one here."

"No." He shook his head, refusing to accept it. He began to shift his body, preparing to gently lower her to the ground so he could find someone, anyone. "I can't just let you—"

"Barry," she whispered, gripping his pant leg tighter. When he looked back down at her, she gave another very tiny shake of her head, willing him to understand through her eyes.

 _Her eyes are so blue_ , he thought, distractedly.

Defeated, he settled back down, cradling her in his lap with his good arm. No one was coming.

…

He had no memory of taking his jacket off. It must have happened somewhere between him getting up and him falling down next to Kara. He thought he'd remember since it would have required him to get it past his bleeding shoulder, but as he held Kara in his arms, he felt her shiver slightly. It was then he noticed the jacket lying on the ground next to him, but he could not for the life of him figure out how, and at that point it didn't much matter. Grimacing now, he used his bleeding arm to grab it and awkwardly wrap it around her.

"This isn't how I thought I'd go," Kara remarked, bravely striving for humor. "In a sequined gown, bleeding from a bullet wound, after a tap number in front of a crowd."

Barry couldn't confront what was happening in front of him, and searched vainly for any way to stave off the inevitable. "You dance really well," he said, lamely. "And…and you looked beautiful."

"You don't have to say that, Barry," she muttered, looking away from him in some embarrassment.

"No," he shook his head. "It's true. And, um…" he stuttered, thinking back to when he'd first entered this surreal musical universe. He was still a bit awed that the figure he'd seen on stage, sheathed in that slinky gown, gloves pulled to her upper arms and hair swept behind one ear, had actually been Kara. "…you also looked really amazing in that black dress earlier," he finished.

Kara's head turned back to him slowly, and the corners of her lips tilted up as her eyes searched his face. "Barry Allen," she teased weakly, "are you blushing?"

He chuckled nervously, suddenly becoming aware of himself. "I guess I am," he replied. Her little smirk grew, ever so slightly, and he quickly judged his discomfort to be well worth just having that. "But," he continued, "your singing definitely stole the show."

In fact, his first memory of this dream world wasn't of the shining chandeliers hanging from the club ceiling or the sparkling champagne glasses getting filled at the bar. It was the gorgeous, timeless quality of Kara's voice singing a 1960s tune like it was brand new, and he remembered hoping she would never stop. "I think Moon River's my favorite song now, as long as you're singing it," he told her with a teasing grin, prompting a light giggle from her.

"My 'Old Hollywood' moment," she sighed.

…

It began to rain, with the light patter hitting the street, and the cars, and the rooftops. A couple stray droplets landed on Kara's face, and to Barry's surprise, she exhaled a soft, contented sigh. "What?" he asked, smiling a bit despite himself, desperately wanting to know what could make her even a little happy now.

In response, she began to sing gently.

 _"A little fall of rain  
Can hardly hurt me now"_

Barry shook his head, at a loss for words, and Kara actually chuckled slightly. "C'mon Barry, I know you know this one," she teased.

"Kara," Barry begged, "you need to save your strength."

She coughed, convulsing slightly in his arms. He held her tighter, trying in vain to give her whatever support he could. "If this is it, there are worse ways to go," she replied faintly.

"Kara," Barry began again. "I—"

"Barry, sing with me," Kara pleaded, locking him with her gaze again. "Please. I…I'm…"

As his green eyes stared into her soft blue ones, he saw her struggle internally, and his heart broke when he realized what she couldn't say. At the height of her power, she could stop bullets, fly through the sky, and blast pure energy from her eyes. She'd braved a dimensional breach to drive aliens from an Earth that wasn't even technically hers, just because Barry had asked for her help. She was a hero in every sense of the word.

And she was scared.

He was overwhelmed with confusion, pain, panic, and most of all, helplessness, as she bled out in his arms in this strange, musical hallucination that had suddenly become so hideously sinister. In this moment, though, Barry was sure of two things: Kara was the only one in his world that was real, and he would do anything to make her feel less afraid.

So he nodded and softly started to sing, her head cradled in his arm.

 _"You would live a hundred years  
If I could show you how  
I won't desert you now..."_

Kara's lips curved into a smile, a tiny but pleased smile at being proven right about Barry's musical knowledge. Her voice momentarily grew stronger as she picked up her verse.

 _"The rain can't hurt me now  
This rain will wash away what's past  
And you will keep me safe  
And you will keep me close  
I'll sleep in your embrace at last"_

"The rain—" Kara tried to continue, but she winced painfully and clenched her bleeding stomach with both hands, and Barry saw her eyes lose focus. Barely registering the pain in his shoulder now, he put his right hand between both of hers at her stomach, intertwining his fingers with hers.

"Easy, easy," he whispered. Light drops continued to fall, spattering his neck and her cheek. He leaned forward slightly, trying to shelter her as he frantically sought some way of distracting her from her wound. His mind settled on the obvious. "Hey, remember the day we met?"

Her body was still clenched against the pain, but she managed a tiny snort anyway. "You thought I needed saving."

"You fell out a window"

"I would've been okay."

"How was I supposed to know that?"

A small huff from her chest as the wave of agony seemed to pass. "Fine," she acknowledged faintly. "And then you agreed to help me stop Livewire and Silver Banshee."

"You said you'd help me get home in return."

"I know that wasn't the reason you did it," she countered, smiling.

Barry blinked, not expecting that answer, but as he returned her crystal-clear gaze, momentarily unclouded with pain, he knew she saw right through him. Truthfully, he had been pretty reckless that day, revealing his identity to her, as she could have been any number of powered and untrustworthy beings. However, Kara's first instinct had instead been to help a lost metahuman get home, and when she'd asked for his assistance against her own rogues gallery, he couldn't help but agree. She'd been so kind, and so genuine, that he knew even then he would have fought at her side regardless of circumstances.

The bond he felt with her then had been instant, and now he knew that the feeling went both ways. He returned her grin. "No, I suppose it wasn't," he acknowledged.

She smiled a bit wider, only to then cough and turn her head away. After a few moments, she turned to face him again, deadly serious. "Barry," she began, her voice insistent but barely above a whisper, "tell my sister I love her." He started shaking his head, not wanting to have this exchange, but once again Kara was able to communicate to him, just with her eyes, that he needed to listen. "Tell her…tell her that I was at peace, and that I wasn't alone when I died." He felt her fingers grip his tightly. "That I was with someone I…that I care about. So she doesn't worry," she added.

There was so little history between the two of them, and yet their experiences together had always been intense and exhilarating, dangerous in every possible sense but, somehow, never truly terrifying simply because he had known he could rely on her, and she on him. Belatedly, holding her like this in his arms, he realized it had never mattered that the Girl of Steel was his ally. It mattered that Kara Danvers was important to him. Now, with everything feeling so real and so _present_ , he was struck by how "superfriend" didn't even begin to cover what she meant to him.

He also could feel, rather than see, Kara slipping away, and she was still waiting for his answer, so he gave a small nod of his head. "I'll tell Alex," he assured her. "I promise."

Kara nodded gratefully in return, and he noticed her blinks beginning to get heavy, her breathing starting to slow. But he wasn't ready to let go yet. He wasn't ready to say goodbye.

It was still raining. So he sang.

 _"A little fall of rain"_

Weakly, Kara joined in, alternating and overlapping with him as her breaths grew more labored.

 _"A little fall of rain"_

 _"Can hardly hurt you now"_

 _"Can hardly hurt me now"_

 _"I'm here"_

 _"That's all I need to know"_

Her voice faded to a scant whisper, and his face leaned in close to hers.

 _"And you will keep me safe"_

 _"I will stay with you"_

 _"And you will keep me close"_

 _"Till you are sleeping"_

He was now just reading her lips.

 _"And rain"_

 _"And rain"_

 _"Will make the flowers…"_

 _"Will make the flowers…"_

Even as Barry drew out his last word, Kara's eyes slowly fluttered closed, her grip on his fingers slackening. Her head began to turn away from him on its own, and he brought his hand up to catch her face before it did, cupping her cheek softly in his palm. Gently, despairingly, he pressed his forehead against hers as his tears mixed with raindrops.

"…grow," he finished, quietly.

…

 _Music: A Little Fall of Rain, Les Misérables_


End file.
